MOBY DICK

HERMAN MELVILLE


CHAPTER 61


Stubb Kills a Whale


If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to Queequeg it
was quite a different object.

"When you see him 'quid," said the savage, honing his harpoon in the bow of his
hoisted boat, "then you quick see him 'parm whale."

The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing special to
engage them, the Pequod's crew could hardly resist the spell of sleep induced by
such a vacant sea. For this part of the Indian Ocean through which we then were
voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively ground; that is, it affords fewer
glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish, and other vivacious denizens of
more stirring waters, than those off the Rio de la Plata, or the in-shore ground
off Peru.

It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and with my shoulders leaning
against the slackened royal shrouds, to and fro I idly swayed in what seemed an
enchanted air. No resolution could withstand it; in that dreamy mood losing all
consciousness, at last my soul went out of my body; though my body still
continued to sway as a pendulum will, long after the power which first moved it
is withdrawn.

Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that the seamen at the
main and mizzen mast-heads were already drowsy. So that at last all three of us
lifelessly swung from the spars, and for every swing that we made there was a
nod from below from the slumbering helmsman. The waves, too, nodded their
indolent crests; and across the wide trance of the sea, east nodded to west, and
the sun over all.

Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes; like vices my hands
grasped the shrouds; some invisible, gracious agency preserved me; with a
shock I came back to life. And lo! close under our lee, not forty fathoms off, a
gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like the capsized hull of a frigate,
his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue, glistening in the sun's rays like a
mirror. But lazily undulating in the trough of the sea, and ever and anon
tranquilly spouting his vapory jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher
smoking his pipe of a warm afternoon. But that pipe, poor whale, was thy last.
As if struck by some enchanter's wand, the sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all
at once started into wakefulness; and more than a score of voices from all parts
of the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes from aloft, shouted forth the
accustomed cry, as the great fish slowly and regularly spouted the sparkling
brine into the air.

"Clear away the boats! Luff!" cried Ahab. And obeying his own order, he
dashed the helm down before the helmsman could handle the spokes.

The sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the whale; and ere the
boats were down, majestically turning, he swam away to the leeward, but with
such a steady tranquillity, and making so few ripples as he swam, that thinking
after all he might not as yet be alarmed, Ahab gave orders that not an oar should
be used, and no man must speak but in whispers. So seated like Ontario Indians

on the gunwales of the boats, we swiftly but silently paddled along; the calm not
admitting of the noiseless sails being set. Presently, as we thus glided in chase,
the monster perpendicularly flitted his tail forty feet into the air, and then sank
out of sight like a tower swallowed up.

"There go flukes!" was the cry, an announcement immediately followed by
Stubb's producing his match and igniting his pipe, for now a respite was
granted. After the full interval of his sounding had elapsed, the whale rose
again, and being now in advance of the smoker's boat, and much nearer to it
than to any of the others, Stubb counted upon the honor of the capture. It was
obvious, now, that the whale had at length become aware of his pursuers. All
silence of cautiousness was therefore no longer of use. Paddles were dropped,
and oars came loudly into play. And still puffing at his pipe, Stubb cheered on
his crew to the assault.

Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive to his jeopardy, he was
going "head out"; that part obliquely projecting from the mad yeast which he
brewed.*

*It will be seen in some other place of what a very light substance the entire
interior of the sperm whale's enormous head consists. Though apparently the
most massive, it is by far the most buoyant part about him. So that with ease he
elevates it in the air, and invariably does so when going at his utmost speed.
Besides, such is the breadth of the upper part of the front of his head, and such
the tapering cut-water formation of the lower part, that by obliquely elevating
his head, he thereby may be said to transform himself from a bluff-bowed
sluggish galliot into a sharppointed New York pilot-boat.

"Start her, start her, my men! Don't hurry yourselves; take plenty of time- but
start her; start her like thunder-claps, that's all," cried Stubb, spluttering out the

smoke as he spoke. "Start her, now; give 'em the long and strong stroke,
Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy- start her, all; but keep cool, keep cool-
cucumbers is the word- easy, easy- only start her like grim death and grinning
devils, and raise the buried dead perpendicular out of their graves, boys- that's
all. Start her!"

"Woo-hoo! Wa-hee!" screamed the Gay-Header in reply, raising some old war-
whoop to the skies; as every oarsman in the strained boat involuntarily bounced
forward with the one tremendous leading stroke which the eager Indian gave.

But his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild. "Kee-hee! Kee-
hee!" yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and backwards on his seat, like a
pacing tiger in his cage.

"Ka-la! Koo-loo!" howled Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over a mouthful of
Grenadier's steak. And thus with oars and yells the keels cut the sea.
Meanwhile, Stubb, retaining his place in the van, still encouraged his men to the
onset, all the while puffing the smoke from his mouth. Like desperadoes they
tugged and they strained, till the welcome cry was heard- "Stand up, Tashtego!-
give it to him!" The harpoon was hurled. "Stern all!" The oarsmen backed
water; the same moment something went hot and hissing along every one of
their wrists. It was the magical line. An instant before, Stubb had swiftly caught
two additional turns with it round the loggerhead, whence, by reason of its
increased rapid circlings, a hempen blue smoke now jetted up and mingled with
the steady fumes from his pipe. As the line passed round and round the
loggerhead; so also, just before reaching that point, it blisteringly passed
through and through both of Stubb's hands, from which the hand-cloths, or
squares of quilted canvas sometimes worn at these times, had accidentally
dropped. It was like holding an enemy's sharp two-edged sword by the blade,
and that enemy all the time striving to wrest it out of your clutch.


"Wet the line! wet the line!" cried Stubb to the tub oarsman (him seated by the
tub) who, snatching off his hat, dashed sea-water into it.* More turns were
taken, so that the line began holding its place. The boat now flew through the
boiling water like a shark all fins. Stubb and Tashtego here changed places-
stem for stern- a staggering business truly in that rocking commotion.

*Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here be stated, that, in
the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash the running line with water; in
many other ships, a wooden piggin, or bailer, is set apart for that purpose. Your
hat, however, is the most convenient.

From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper part of the boat,
and from its now being more tight than a harpstring, you would have thought
the craft had two keels- one cleaving the water, the other the air- as the boat
churned on through both opposing elements at once. A continual cascade played
at the bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy in her wake; and, at the slightest motion
from within, even but of a little finger, the vibrating, cracking craft canted over
her spasmodic gunwale into the sea. Thus they rushed; each man with might and
main clinging to his seat, to prevent being tossed to the foam; and the tall form
of Tashtego at the steering oar crouching almost double, in order to bring down
his centre of gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifics seemed passed as they shot
on their way, till at length the whale somewhat slackened his flight.

"Haul in- haul in!" cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing round towards the
whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to him, while yet the boat was being
towed on. Soon ranging up by his flank, Stubb, firmly planting his knee in the
clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart into the flying fish; at the word of command,
the boat alternately sterning out of the way of the whale's horrible wallow, and
then ranging up for another fling.


The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like brooks down a hill.
His tormented body rolled not in brine but in blood, which bubbled and seethed
for furlongs behind in their wake. The slanting sun playing upon their crimson
pond in the sea, sent back its reflection into every face, so that they all glowed
to each other like red men. And all the while, jet after jet of white smoke was
agonizingly shot from the spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after puff
from the mouth of the excited headsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon his
crooked lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again and again,
by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and again sent it into the
whale.

"Pull up- pull up!" he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning whale relaxed
in his wrath. "Pull up!- close to!" and the boat ranged along the fish's flank.
When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned his long sharp lance into
the fish, and kept it there, carefully churning and churning, as if cautiously
seeking to feel after some gold watch that the whale might have swallowed, and
which he was fearful of breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch
he sought was the innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for, starting
from his trance into that unspeakable thing called his "flurry," the monster
horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in impenetrable, mad,
boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping astern, had much
ado blindly to struggle out from that phrensied twilight into the clear air of the
day.

And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view!
surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting his spout-hole,
with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush after gush of clotted
red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frightened
air; and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea.

His heart had burst!

"He's dead, Mr. Stubb," said Daggoo.

"Yes; both pipes smoked out!" and withdrawing his own from his mouth, Stubb
scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for a moment, stood thoughtfully
eyeing the vast corpse he had made.